Military anthems, militarism, and our youth

 “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli”

Most of us have known these lyrics to the “Marine Hymn” since childhood. Or I guess we have. It is entirely possible that, for a variety of reasons, the service anthems are no longer being taught in elementary schools, maybe not for decades, and kids are not learning them elsewhere. Of course, when we learned them (3^rd grade? 4^th?) we had no idea what those lyrics meant, what the ‘halls of Montezuma’ or the ‘shores of Tripoli’ were. Montezuma was dead for several hundred years when the Marines stormed Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City in 1847 during the Mexican War. There was great loss of life on the Marines’ side (and undoubtedly on the Mexican) and ostensibly the “blood stripe” on Marines’ trousers honors them. It was brave for these Marines on an individual and group basis, but it nonetheless true that they were part of an alien military force invading another country. Also, it was a while before I realized it was ‘Montezuma’ and not ‘Montezulema’, since the actual name is one syllable too short to scan and requires holding the “u” for two beats (“Mon-te-zu-u-ma”). It was even earlier, in 1805, that the Marines invaded Tripoli, on the ‘Barbary Coast’ of North Africa, to remove the Barbary pirates that had been attacking American shipping. And conquer the country.

OK, the rest of the song is comprehensible, if (unsurprisingly) exceedingly macho; that’s the nature of service anthems. But the other anthems had their issues also. The Army’s is called “The Caissons Go Rolling Along”, and we dutifully learned it, but never were told what ‘caissons’ were. None of us had any idea. Turns out that they were horse-drawn carriages that carried cannons and ammunition. Hadn’t been used in WWII. So an explanation would have been helpful. I understand that the lyrics have now changed to “the Army goes rolling along”. At least it scans.

The other word no one explained was “aweigh” as in “Anchors Aweigh”, the Navy song. I imagine we all thought it was “away”, and assumed that if the ships were going to sail they had to get rid of the anchors, so put them away. This makes at least as much sense as the actual archaic word, aweigh. The other thing about the Navy song, which I certainly didn’t recognize as a kid, is that it is obviously a college song from the US Naval Academy, apparently for the class of 1907, and thus a song for the officers rather than a song the Navy’s sailors. (“Farewell to college joys, we sail at break of day – ay – ay – ay” – another scanning problem.) It is also a drinking song, which I assume regular sailors can share with USNA students.

The Air Force song, “Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder” was much more comprehensible, probably because it was 20^th-century. Maybe we even knew what “yonder” meant. The original lyrics were changed from “Nothing can stop the Army Air Corps” to “US Air Force” when the independent service was established. Although my father was in the Army, he was actually in what was the Army Air Corps at the time.

The final service anthem, from the oldest service, the US Coast Guard (which is the only one not part of the Defense Department, having landed in Homeland Security after a few other locations), is also pretty easy to understand, once you get past the title which is the Coast Guard motto and in Latin, “Semper Paratus”, always ready. It, like the Air Force, has a reference to dying (“to fight and die”; the Air Force has “go down in flame”), which the others lack, despite the definite possibility thereof.

Back in the late 1950s there was no audible controversy about promoting militarism and a simplistic flag-waving version of patriotism in our public schools. Our dress code included ties for little boys, and on Assembly Days, blue pants, white shirt, and red tie! I definitely remember an Assembly program put on by our 3^rd-grade (I’m sure of this; I remember the teacher) class, in which each of us participating stood up on stage and read from a short script that said “My father was in the Army (Navy, etc.). He served for X months.” Maybe there was another line. Anyway, obviously some kids couldn’t participate. Their fathers were not in the military. Maybe they were disabled and 4F, or were serving in a critical domestic role, or otherwise were ineligible for WWII. Given our age, born about 4 years after the war, none of them could have died in WWII, although it is not impossible that some could have been killed in Korea, a war begun when we were infants, or certainly later died from other causes; indeed I know this to have been the case for some kids.

So it was pretty unthinking, unfeeling, and inappropriate for our teacher (and by assent, the school) to make these kids feel left out and as if their fathers were “lesser”. But it was, and probably still is, part of an effort to encourage military service. It may have backfired for our generation, since in young adulthood many of us resisted and resented the current use of military force, in Vietnam, but it is a useful thing for a society that now depends upon an all-volunteer force that doesn’t think too much about where they are being sent or why.

A recent Facebook post making the rounds professes to be from a teen, and asks for good parenting because their brain is not yet fully developed however “smart” they appear to be. This is, in fact, true; the last part of the cerebral cortex to develop, in the mid 20s, is the frontal lobe, where making connections, coming to good judgements, and exercising “executive function” resides. This is why a young people, however smart they are or how much they know, still often make incomprehensibly bad decisions. (“When you drove into that intersection, what were you thinking?” “Thinking?”) It is also why they can be brave, violent, reckless with their own lives, and very obedient to authority, thus making good soldiers.

However, don’t ask me why adults, well past their mid-20s, make incomprehensibly bad decisions. That is a whole other story.

 

 

Red, yellow, cherry, lemon and cars in primary colors

I seem to like red now. Not red as in “communist” (although maybe that as well) or certainly red as in Republican (which I abhor), but just the color. My car is red, and if I get another one, red is certainly a preference. Hard to find; all cars these days seem to be various shades of beige and gray. Except in Tucson where they are mostly white, to reflect the sun. It is a beige world, but I like primary colors. I wouldn’t mind a royal blue car, and I thought that the FJ Cruiser in yellow looked cool, much better than the baby poop green that is also popular now, especially in Priuses, but probably red.

I’m wearing red, all layers on my upper body today. My old red windbreaker, with the many pockets and hood and elastic strings with plastic pressure clips on the end hanging down. Very good jacket, old and still the best. My fleece is red, thin, says KU Family Medicine. In red. A little stretched out at the wrists, and Pat doesn’t like it, but it is comfortable and not too heavy. Good for inside. And today a red t-shirt, once my father’s, ironically in fact with the logo “Sure, I’m a Marxist”, with pictures of Marxes: Chico, Harpo, Groucho, and...Karl. 

When I was a kid red was definitely not my favorite color. Red was everyone else’s favorite color. Perhaps that was why it was not mine; mine was yellow. I think, however, in addition to iconoclasm, it had to do with the flavor of candies. My favorite flavor in candies – Life Savers, Jujyfruits, Chuckles, Tootsie Roll pops (or any lollipops), popsicles, anything with flavor (of course there were candies like Necco Wafers which had different colors but essentially undistinguishable tastes, mostly dust-flavored) was lemon, and lemon candies were yellow. Red candies were cherry, and I didn’t like those that much, and it was pretty convenient because people were always willing to trade me their yellows for my reds. Of course, there were sometimes when you’d get fooled and a yellow one would be pineapple, or a red one would be strawberry or raspberry. Although I remember learning that blue popsicles – which we called “blue” as if it were a flavor – were raspberry. That tasted a lot better (to me) than cherry. This bled (ooh! blood is red!) over into colors in general; I liked yellow, everyone else liked red.

Later in life, maybe as a teen or young adult, I realized that I loved the flavor of actual cherries, ripe bing cherries, and also realized that that flavor was virtually nothing at all like the imitation cherry flavor in candies and popsicles. Maybe that is where I became more accepting of red as a color, and started buying red cars. They’re much more common than yellow anyway!

And now, to be honest, my favorite color is probably purple, deep purple, and likely always was. It is also my grandson’s favorite color, so we share that in common. And apparently royalty back in the day. Poor conches.

Poems for a Rainy Day, or Verses in Educational Philosophy

[Written -- actually typed on a typewriter! -- decades ago]

 

HEURISTICS

Heuristics lend a helping hand

For things hard to understand.

I wonder who invents these cues

That I so often have to use?

Would I be too strict a purist

If I called him (or her) a heurist?

  

EPISTEMOLOGY

Epistemology – ways of knowing,

How we can tell the grass is growing.

Observation, intuition,

Then there’s always

Superstition.

 

Some folks like things they can measure,

Others insight really treasure;

Me, I always opt for leisure.

 

QUALITATIVE METHODS

Naturalistic inquiry

Looks at how folks think and see

In the context of their place and time.

Hermeneutics doesn’t have rhyme.

But I still would be a little leery

Of distinguishing it from grounded theory.

Why do so many people find fun in loud, aggressive, intrusive behavior?

An easy (and, I guess, common) thing to do on a blog is to rant about the things that the author does not like in the world or about people. There is usually a long, sometimes seemingly endless, list. I have such as list, and I will be carrying on about many of the things on it, so it is a good time to bail if you wish. The thing that I would like to emphasize, though, is that I will really be complaining about one thing, in its many manifestations. This is behavior, mostly but not exclusively by males, that is seen as characteristically, stereotypically, and likely accurately, male.

This often is violent or overtly aggressive toward other people (see: January 6, 2021 + much violent crime) but also is often sublimated into going fast, often in cars but also in / on other vehicles, for no apparent reason. If asked to explain why they do it, it is usually described as fun or exciting. This is very common and in fact admired; note the popularity of both NASCAR and the “Fast and Furious” movie franchise. I guess it is actually fine as long as it doesn’t hurt, or have significant potential to hurt, other people. One example I always think of are the fisherman on the lake on which I had a house in Kansas. It was a small lake, and it didn’t take more than a minute or two for fishermen to get from the public dock at one end to the shallow inlets where they fished down by our end. Especially with the 200HP motors on them. Really fast, but really short trips. Other boats on our lake, and on other bigger lakes also do this all the time, towing water-skiers or running jet skis around and around in circles. What struck me about the fishermen in particular was that, when they got to the end of the lake in just a couple of minutes, they cut their gasoline engines, started their electric trolling motors, and quietly moved around in the shallows fishing for the next couple of hours. But they must have saved at least two minutes compared to going more slowly, two minutes more time for quiet fishing.  And, of course, they added on another two minutes on the other end. But harmless, I suppose, although loud, and creating huge wakes making the lake difficult to swim or canoe or kayak on.

I suppose jet skis are the same; their only function is enjoyment for the riders, but they really mess up the water. At least power boats towing water skiers are helping someone do something that actually requires skill and physical effort; I admit to a prejudice in favor of activities that actually require or help build some muscle and fitness and effort (canoeing, kayak, biking, hiking). The activities that are “just fun” for the people doing them regardless of how they affect others are often done on purpose to harass others – think of jet skiers “buzzing the beach”. Or, for that matter, folks who play their car radios really loud with the windows open (the rest of us mostly just hear the booming bass line) or have their motorcycle mufflers adjusted to make really loud noise. Sometimes this is all a reflection of immaturity, and this immaturity is to a degree “natural”; human brains are not fully developed into the mid-20s, and the last part to develop completely is the fontal lobe, controlling “executive function” and what we might generally call judgement. This is different from being smart, or even knowing a lot – it is being able to integrate the information you have and make a wise decision based on it.

Why did you drive into that busy intersection where you then had a crash? What were you thinking?

Thinking?

So that can be dangerous, despite the fact that it can also be normal for young people (mostly male) because of their incomplete brain development. But the problem is that for many, such behavior persists, long past the mid-20s, into middle and even old age. How do we explain this? Arrested development? The counter influence of a culture that glorifies violence and war (mostly, it must be said, for the profit)? The counter influence of substances, particularly alcohol? Does it matter?

It matters little if kids are just acting out and testing limits and don’t really cause difficulty for others, just sometimes irritation. It matters a little if people acting out do intrude on the life and activities of others, and a lot if it creates danger to them. And worse if it actually harms others.

I first thought that the question was why we accept such behavior as ok. Now I realize that this question doesn’t mean anything. I just wish the norm for acceptable behavior (at least for males) was  not aggressive, violent, mean, and stupid.